BUFS Preview: This Changes Everything

This week, BUFS is pleased to present This Changes Everything directed by Avi Lewis and written by Naomi Klein. This week’s film is co-sponsored by the Niagara Social Justice Forum.

Tactful images of the effects of climate change shape this vigorous social justice documentary. This Changes Everything veers away from the typical argument of climate change and instead, Director, Avi Lewis, focuses on the opportunity of climate change as a change driver in society. He presents it as an opportunity to become a society that values the planet rather than a capitalist society that treats the earth like a machine and seeks to exploit it and thus slowly destroy it.

The film focuses on six different communities across the globe where climate action is taking place. It captures the devastation and struggles of these communities who are battling the government and private entity projects that are wreaking havoc on the land. The film opens with images of the desecration of Alberta’s landscape caused by the infamous oil sands. The audience is then introduced to the local indigenous population whose land forms part of the oil sands, land that they are continuously being denied access to. These locals, who are members of the Beaver Lake Cree Nation, share a different narration than the capitalists destroying the land. To them, man can never own the land; it is not there for exploitation but rather for man to steward it and assist in it flourishing.

The film goes on to the USA to look at the devastation of Hurricane Sandy, a rude awakening to the New York population of the effects environmental destruction is having on Climate Change. From there, the film moves to a city in Greece where citizens attempt to stop a gold processing plant that is trying to exploit the current economic crisis happening there. The film then travels to India where citizens fight to stop a coal-based power plant that will only privilege the wealthy at the cost of ravishing the land. Lastly the film takes it’s audience to China where thick clouds of smog have led many citizens to demonstrations forcing the government to act and invest in solar energy.

This Changes Everything carries with it an inspiring and compelling message that society has the opportunity to change or be changed by the effects of climate change. It urges its audience to recognize that changes can be made globally on both a micro and macro scale to help the planet prosper.